Another instalment of the ongoing adventures of Cliché World: where every cliché said is seen to be an actual thing that happens. Today, it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.

Someone at a boxing match heavily in favour of the brutal heavyweight champ says, “it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings!” and each time it seems the hero has lost the camera pans over to an obese woman in an opera outfit, not singing. Finally, our hero knocks out the champ, and the camera turns to opera lady who, startled, jumps up and starts singing. It’s really over. The hero leaves the ring, surrounded by people who bet against him telling him they knew all along he’d win. He’s taken a horrible beating, and as he’s bleeding all over his heart-of-gold girlfriend, the one bookie who really believed in our hero slips a wad of bills into the singer’s hand.

Trump: You’re fake news! We live in a world that has walls, like in Vatican City and around Obama’s mansion, and I’m the only one who can build this wall. A beautiful wall of solid concrete, or steel or gold or whatever. Who’s gonna build it? Me! Not the failing New York Times or Nancy Pelosi or Jeff Bozo! I am a stabler genius than you can possibly fathom. You weep for MS-13 and you curse the Deplorables. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that colluding with Russia, which no one can prove and anyway it was Crooked Hillary who was colluding, probably saved lives. And my hair and spray tan and mushroom dick, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, save lives! You don’t want the truth, because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want that wall. You need that wall. We use words like “Pocahantas”, “covfefe”, “loyalty.” We use these words as the backbone of a life spent lying about everything. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the attention span to explain myself to Democrats who rise and sleep under the Trump-branded blanket (all sales final) of the very freedom that I provide, and then question the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “thank you Mr. Trump”, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you come back to Washington, and give me $5.7 billion for this wall or steel slats or white picket fence. The real America has picket fences! Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

I’ve been writing a lot of trivia questions lately, for the monthly trivia night my friends and I host, and also as a fun way to learn things myself, with the notion of trying to host my own regular night in the future. What I’ve learned is that fascinating facts abound, but sometimes it’s a struggle to form a question around the facts, in a way that is “gettable” for people hoping to answer and also fun. And that’s especially true in the case of multiple choice questions.

Consider this: faced with a list of Jim Jarmusch movies, imagine the wealth of questions you could ask, the diverse plots, the range of actors appearing, the variety of styles. Jarmusch has used certain actors on multiple occasions, so the thought occurs to write a question with multiple choices where the correct response is the one outlier in an actor’s filmography with the snowy-haired auteur.

But then you run into problems, entirely based on the standard format of multiple choice questions including five or six potential answers. Bill Murray, for example, has been a favourite actor for Jarmusch, and so I thought to write a question asking simply, “Which of these Jarmusch films did not feature the inimitable talents of Bill Murray?” The issue: Murray only appeared in three films for Jarmusch, so there aren’t enough wrong answers to fill the requisite number of false choices. Same problem for Roberto Benigni, another Jarmusch favourite. The end result? Two potentially fun and informative questions that just can’t be written as multiple choice, and a sad quizmaster who loves the Jarmusch oeuvre but finds his options seriously curtailed.

In the spirit of the baseball playoffs, I started thinking about hitting streaks and 0-fers, and how they relate to my own sexual history. It took me a long time to reach the majors, after college in fact, but I made up for it with enthusiasm and energy. I was no Rookie of the Year, but I had a solid first season, learned a few things, and took chances. Things were looking good, but quickly took a turn for the worse. I’ve mostly been out of the game, but every few years would somehow manage to get an at-bat, but even those rare opportunities have dried up. I still love the game, and would love to play an inning now and again, but these days I’m just a spectator. After all, who would sign up someone who hasn’t even had a base hit in the past six years?

The last bus to the airport is at 5:20pm, but the connecting bus will take you most of the way there, and call a cab to pick you up at Tim Horton’s! The drivers are quite chatty and will note points of interest along the route.

Two bartenders asked my name and offered theirs, along with a handshake. Very friendly, and seemingly quite genuine.

The concierge at my hotel was Chinese-Canadian perhaps, but still had the Newfoundland lilt… I love that not just white people have the accent, that it’s a part of our multicultural nation, and I’m reminded of Shaun Majumder.

The most Newfie-sounding guy I met was a waiter at the Duke of Duckworth, who remembered what I’d ordered the day before.

I was only there for two and a half days, but I think about it a lot, and can’t wait to go back.

I was sitting at the bar of the Celtic Hearth on Water Street in St. John’s, Newfoundland watching the game when a retired couple came in and sat beside me. The gentleman asked for a Guinness and was shocked to hear they didn’t have it, but rather Kilkenny.

Surprising that they didn’t, but moreso that they usually do but were somehow out, and most surprising that this wasn’t the first bar on the strip he’d asked after a Guinness, only to be denied. He turned to me and asked could I believe it? His people had settled the damn place and they didn’t have Guinness?

Where are you from? I asked. Originally Ireland but lately Sudbury. We talked a bit about the footie and then he left, off on his appallingly quixotic search for Guinness in a city more Irish than Ireland.